Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2026
Trajectory Data Analyses for Pedestrian Space-time Activity Study
Published on: February 25, 2013
Matching Pedestrian‒Vehicle Crash Records and Clinical Follow-Up Data to Describe Demographic, Geographic, and
Peter M V DeJonge1, Jepchumba Koech1, Stacey Hoferka1
1Peter M. V. DeJonge is with the Career Epidemiology Field Officer program within the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Office of Readiness and Response, Atlanta, GA. Brian Borah and Jepchumba Koech were with the Chicago Department of Public Health, Chicago, IL, at the time of this project. Stacey Hoferka is with the Illinois Department of Public Health, Chicago. David Ederer was with the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, Atlanta, at the time of this project.
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Objectives. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the morbidity associated with pedestrian risk in Chicago, Illinois, by probabilistically matching the data of injured pedestrians in standardized police traffic crash reports to their associated emergency department (ED) visit record. Methods. Between 2018 and 2022, we extracted information on pedestrians injured by vehicles as recorded by the Chicago Police Department pedestrians seen at a city ED for injuries sustained by a vehicle. Among matched records, we used descriptive statistics to describe temporal, geographic, and demographic patterns in ED-attended pedestrian injury. We used multivariable regression modeling to calculate incidence rates of ED-attended pedestrian injury across Chicago communities of varying economic hardship. Results. Among 2631 ED patients matched to a police department crash record, 73.9% were initially recorded by police with nonincapacitating injuries or less at the crash scene. Five of the 6 communities with the highest combination of crash frequency and injury severity were among the 40% most economically disadvantaged communities. Conclusions. Incorporation of ED data highlighted pedestrian injuries that would have been missed with police crash data alone, which disproportionately affects economically vulnerable neighborhoods. Public Health Implications. Regular incorporation of pedestrian-injury data from local EDs could help jurisdictions better understand broader public health implications and disparities in pedestrian risk and identify additional opportunities for intervention. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print July 9, 2026:e1-e10. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2026.308516).
